Bereft
by GreenWood Elf
Summary: She screams and the sound destroys her. Loosening the last rusty nail of sanity. Splintering the aged timber. The house collapses, wall by wall by wall. And in the cellar, the last of Merope Gaunt rots, curled in upon herself as the pain comes.


**Disclaimer: **I claim no ownership of Rowling's work.

**Bereft**

She screams and the sound destroys her. Loosening the last rusty nail of sanity. Splintering the aged timber. The house collapses, wall by wall by wall. And in the cellar, the last of Merope Gaunt rots, curled in upon herself as the pain comes.

Again and again and again.

She knows her dream has gone astray. Knows that somewhere along the way, black ink spilled upon the pages of her fairy tale, rendering it unreadable. The princess is dying in a filthy Muggle foundling hospital, giving birth to a bastard that will never know his father.

Because Tom Riddle is a prince. A distant glimmer on a fading horizon. And Merope has set her eyes on his star, whispering until her breath is a shudder and she herself is empty.

She has given him everything. She has given him a castle in the sky and made the twilight endless for him, just so he might sit a while and clasp her hand and perhaps…perhaps love her.

But Marvolo Gaunt's daughter is not the star in her lover's eyes. She is the swamp, the putrid bog, the quagmire he awoke in to find himself trapped.

He did not flee without leaving a tiny bit of his self behind. And now that shred of his essence is inside her, stirring in her womb, making her bled and sweat and scream.

And scream.

She has wandered the streets of the city like Fantine. She has begged the tempest sent wind for mercy, a reprieve from the cold that at first aches then numbs.

She would give anything to be numb.

Her lips, now chapped, now split and slick with foam, remember the ghost of a kiss. And she wonders if she was ever beautiful to him…or just an illusion glimpsed through fogged glass.

It snows now for her, the New Year restoring the purity of London with white, making it a virgin bride once more.

But Merope is sullied and she has no gift to offer the world save her child. Even now, she is sending him off into darkness, into the arms of Muggles who will not know him.

She sees it in the pale, blank expression of the midwife, the woman who will usher in life and lay a cold sheet over the mother's corpse. She sees it in the glassy glance of the orphanage's matron, who swept Merope in from the street like a stray cat to have her litter by the hearth.

It is a night of feral stars and revelry. Outside, motor cars chug through the gutters, stopping to convey glittering women and black-tailed men to galas.

The girl in Merope wishes she could join them. Wishes to sip champagne and absinthe. Wishes for a masked lord to whisper sweet nothings in her ear. Wishes to dream…dream…dream

But the pain is climbing now and the ferry stands moored, waiting to bear her across the Styx.

Merope will leave the land of the living for that wailing plateau of shades. For ashes and shadows.

And one day, perhaps, Tom will come to find his Dido there.

She wants it to end this way, like a candle going out. Like a sail that billows then slackens. Like the passing of a cloud over the sun, unnoticed, unmentioned.

But the pain is insistent, tethering her to reality. She must wait to cast of this mortal coil.

Lightening forms in her belly and streaks around to the small of her back, traveling up the spine and down to the tops of her thighs.

Her son, her only treasure, is coming.

The midwife pushes her knees apart, calls for clean sheets to catch the baby in.

A moment flutters by. Merope arches her back and lets the agony engulf her. How ritualistic childbirth is, she thinks, a timeless ceremony with the same precise formula.

This magic is ancient.

The air left in her lungs is expelled now. She follows wild instinct, letting her muscles contract and bring tears to her eyes.

It is coming now, coming…coming…Tom's son, his rightful heir.

The midwife extends her arms, makes a basket out of her apron. There is blood, smearing Merope's legs and the stale blankets beneath her.

It is finished.

She waits to hear the child cry.

Silence.

The midwife turns the babe over, her face pulling and twisting with heartbreak. "Stillborn," she says to the night.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Thanks for reading! If you have a free moment, please leave a review. I would love to hear from you. Happy Holidays!


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